COMMUNITY IMPACT FAQ’sUnited Way of Roanoke Valley’s mission is to improve lives by mobilizing the caring power of people in our community. Improving lives has always been the bottom line of our work. Traditionally, United Way has been accomplishing this work by mobilizing resources through employee fundraising campaigns and corporate contributions and supporting programs that provide direct services to individuals and families. This approach has a direct impact on the lives of the clients receiving those services. However, despite all the money we raised and services we and others have helped provide, many problems in our community are still growing. One out of five Roanoke Valley children for instance do not have the skills needed when they enter school. Young children who find themselves in this situation are more likely to have poor academic performance and are at a higher risk of juvenile delinquency and dropping out of school. Many pressing issues in our community have developed because of economic conditions, historical trends, disconnections among the community system and other factors. Even when programs do an outstanding job influencing individual and family attributes, most are not designed, resourced or able to create changes in the host of conditions that are the root causes of these issues. To address those community issues, we need to deal with conditions that created those situations in the first place and are causing them to get worse and worse. Changing those community conditions calls for a new approach as well as additional partners. Aside from the direct impact approach that is supported through the campaign, the new business model adds another approach which is be focused on mobilizing the community’s people, time, talent, relationships, expertise, technology and financial assets and other resources to change conditions in communities that create so many problems for individuals and families. This way, we can improve the lives not just for program clients but for all who live in our community. This approach of improving lives by changing community conditions is what we call “Community Impact.” To achieve community impact, United Way of Roanoke Valley will mobilize not only business and employees, but individuals, organizations, and interests far beyond those with whom we traditional have worked. We are committed to engaging them to identify and prioritize issues, devise solutions, and enlist a broad range of resources – not only money, but also relationships, talent, expertise, leadership, influence and technology. Creating lasting changes that improves lives will require new approaches and new partners. UW and its partners will align their efforts behind a coordinate plan to change conditions. But it does not stop there. These changes generated by working together will be of no value if they don’t achieve what matters - improving lives. Community Impact will look different for each community. It is an agenda that is shaped by the unique needs, resources and characteristics in an area. It is not a direction dictated by United Way but developed and implemented in partnership with other members in the community. For example, in Richmond, Virginia it meant bringing together the Public Health Department and the Virginia Office of Immunization to improve the immunization rates of children. The Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program now provides incentives for recipient mothers to stay current on their family’s immunizations. As a result, the immunization rate for children in families enrolled in the WIC program in Richmond increased from 2% to 50% in three years. In the Roanoke Valley, we have begun the transformation with the implementation of a school readiness initiative called Success by Six (SB6) which works with child care centers and home-based providers to improve the quality of care provided to children. The intent is for children to enter school ready to learn, which in turn, can affect academic performance, graduation rates and in the long run, strengthen the local workforce and economy. Although there have been successes in this endeavor, a lot of work remains to be done to get this local initiative to achieve the same level of change as other community impact communities have done. In order to do this, we will pursue specific community changes as part of research-based strategies that focus on creating targeted improvements in people’s lives. We are not talking about stopping our support for direct services and we are not talking about deciding whether or not to pursue either a direct-service approach or a community change approach. These two strategies must go hand in hand for us to create meaningful impact in the lives of people. This means that UWRV will continue to hold its funded programs in the highest standards and work with them and other partners in improve lives using one or both of these approaches as applicable to a situation - whatever it takes! While United Way does raise and invest dollars, we also help people volunteer, lend their professional expertise, donate household and office items and advocate on behalf of issues. United Way's MLEP program trains and encourages minorities to be involved and become a change leader in the community. United Way is a partner in establishing 2-1-1 in the Valley to connect people who need help or want to help with local resources. Through technical assistance and Gifts In Kind, United Way helps nonprofits operate more effectively and efficiently. All these efforts are part of fulfilling our mission to improve lives. UWRV has begun the process of organizational alignment to achieve Community Impact. In the next few months or so, volunteer groups will be getting together to discuss how we can more forward in this direction while at the same time strengthening our partnership with our funded-programs delivering direct impact to individuals and families. As we work to transform our United Way to achieve community impact, we need to remember that this new business is not just about improving lives of clients of UW-funded programs. Instead, it is about improving lives of people affected by pressing community issues, whether they receive UW-funded services or not. Changing community conditions is not just about influencing the health and human services sector. It is about influencing whatever sectors, systems, networks, groups or environments can play a role in improving lives in our community. Achieving community impact is not just the job of certain United Way functions. It is the business of the entire organization.
For more information on Community Impact and how you can get involved in being a change leader in our community, please contact 777-4206 or email abby@uwrv.org |
Impact Areas